The Sporting Car Club of SA (SCCSA) held the third round of the Motorsport Australia SA State Motor Racing Championships on the weekend with eight categories putting on a show at Mallala Motorsport Park.
 
Sharing the spotlight were all the Championships’ regular categories with Circuit Excels, Historic Racing/Sports Cars, Formula Vee, Sports Cars and Sports Sedans, Holden HQs/Saloon Cars, Improved Production and Circuit Excel Masters each getting five races.
 
Boasting the largest field for the round was the Circuit Excels with 23 cars, as Joel Johnson enjoyed the overall round win after picking up four wins, while three-time runner-up Riley Matheson enjoyed one win himself – the teenager’s victory being his first at state level.


Like Johnson, Samuel Milton just missed out on a perfect weekend in the combined Saloon Cars/HQ Holdens having won all but one race.
 
Milton had won the opening four races in dominant fashion, only to lose his five-race winning streak to David Lines by less than four tenths after Lines snatched the lead on the third lap of the final race and held on until the chequered flag.

Sharing the grid, the HQ Holdens saw plenty of drama over the two days with three different winners - Lee Smith and Darren Jenkins winning two apiece while Nathan Roberts enjoyed one himself.
 

The Historic Racing/Sports Cars also served its fair share of entertainment as Blake Miller walked away with top honours after picking up three wins and two podiums - his closest competitor in James Doig having his hopes of winning the round dashed after the race two and five winner suffered a DNF on race four.
 
Brian Smith and Misch Nowickyj were the two main protagonists in the Circuit Excel Masters, however it was the latter who would walk away victorious after picking up three wins to Smith’s two.
 
Both drivers occupied the top two spots in all five of the category's outings, with Nowickyj winning races one, two and four, while Smith picked up wins in races three and five.
 
A chaotic opening race in the combined Sports Cars/Sports Sedans grid saw four cars fail to finish, however there was nothing dramatic about Ian Wilson’s round win as he guided his TVR Tuscan to a clean sweep of wins – all but one of which were by more than six seconds. 


Behind Wilson in the first four races was Matthew Longhurst, who also topped the Sports Sedans class in his Honda Integra in each race until a DNF in the final outing.
 
Andy Sarandis proved to be the star of the show for not just Improved Production, but for the whole race meeting, as he won every race in convincing fashion.
 
Not only did the Mitsubishi Evo 8 driver win each race by more than 11 seconds, but he also set a new Mallala lap record for the category – his fifth lap time of 1:12.4487 ending up one tenth faster than the previous record set by Chris Brown in 2016.


Formula Vee round winner Daniel Westcott was another to claim a clean sweep, with his closest rival in Hayden Slattery having finished second in every race and only came close in one race when just three seconds split the two.
 
Joining the SCCSA during Sunday’s competition was the Porsche Club of SA, who held a supersprint over the course of the day.
 
Going fastest in all three sessions was Shane Wirthensohn in his Porsche GT4 RS, while his third lap time of 1:13.0391 in the second session was the fastest for the whole category – the next best time from another driver being Shaun Leicester’s 1:14.9555 in the third and final session.
 
The 2023 Motorsport Australia SA State Motor Racing Championships season has just one round left for the year with The Bend Motorsport Park to host the season finale on 16-17 September.